Welcome to Survival of the Fittest, a RPing board loosely based off of Koshun Takami's Battle Royale, with its own unique plot and spin on the 'deadly game'. We've been around quite a while, and are now in our thirteenth year, so don't worry about us going anywhere any time soon!

If you're a newcomer and interested in joining, then please make sure you check out the rules. You may also want to read the FAQ, introduce yourself and stop by the chat to meet some of our members. If you're still not quite sure where to start, then we have a great New Member's Guide with a lot of useful information about getting going. Don't hesitate to PM a member of staff (they have purple usernames) if you have any questions about SOTF and how to get started!

Amanda lowered her own gun sheepishly, her breathing slowly returning to normal as the situation de-escalated.

Kaitlyn was trying to make peace with them in her own fast-talking way, and as much as Amanda didn't like it, it was leagues better than the alternative. Things were going better than expected, something that seemed to be a theme lately, and she wasn't sure how much of that was luck, and how much of that was an abysmal sense of expectations.

Still, she didn't fully trust Kaitlyn. Kinda hard to suddenly trust the grave robber who had one extra bomb on her person than when you met her. Not after she pointing a gun at them. Not after she casually used Mia dying to scare them. But that didn't mean she had to do anything, not when everything had managed to settle down.

Besides, they'd managed to achieve their goal of getting water in a lucky coincidence. And yet, it'd feel completely wrong to take it, especially with their owner still there, still watching over the room with soulless eyes.

And worse off it was starting to rain too. It looked like they were going to be stuck there for the night. And if they were going to be stuck in the pub, she'd rather not have any corpse, let alone Tessa, watching over her the entire night.

"Okay. Let's move it. But let's make it fast, okay?"

Amanda grabbed onto her arms, and with a little help from Kaitlyn and Jaime, lifted the body up. Even though she didn't want to, she couldn't help to notice Tessa's head, which was dangling off at an awkward angle, the neck too damaged to hold it up properly, its weight shaking in a way that made her a little queasy, as they transported the body out of the pub.

The body was dropped, a little too unceremoniously for her liking, left to suffer in the rain while they stayed dry inside the shitty pub.

"Okay, I never thought I’d say this about Tessa, but I actually kinda feel sorry for her out there."

So after they brought Mabes outside, Kaitlyn turned straight back in and half expected Emma or something to be leaping on the stuff she'd left, humping her bag like a dog in heat. After all... well not that Kaitlyn was gonna straight out admit it to herself, but...

Yeah. Say it was probably the smarter thing to do and leave it there.

But thankfully and no, her bag and gun was unmolested and pristine. Really. Of course she'd only been gone outside the door for like 30 seconds. Even if the idea had come up there wasn't enough time. Sure, Kaitlyn would've come to the same conclusion.

So instead Kaitlyn walked over, muttering thanks to the other girls, and sat her ass back down. Gave the group another once-over with her eyes. She'd kinda non-verbally claimed one corner of the pub as hers, and the rest of them were hopefully wise enough to respect it.

So just let them all chill together a while. It beat staying out in the rain. She'd be willing to make a bit of conversation with the rest if they wanted to. But for the most part? She'd just wait it out.

And think of stuff other than tomorrow. Kaitlyn wiggled her toes in her new footwear. Yeah, they were about half a size too small, but still an upgrade. Her feet weren't getting crushed here or anything. Boots, fine. Except may for those stupid cats on them.

Bomb, bitchin. Except that she needed to figure out how the hell it worked.

Announcements...

Fucking announcements. Except everything there.

And later that night when she jerked awake after a few hours sleeping in a chair and still heard the rain coming down she couldn't help get back to that point. Didn't like the feeling.

Kaitlyn had never cried. OK, as a toddler or whatever, sure. Maybe a couple times later on she didn't remember. And she sure as hellrain wasn't crying now. But whatever she was feeling was that sense that could maybe bring about tears in lesser ones. And it mixed with the cold anticipation she liked feeling here and maybe came out the winning end. Right now at least. It was like -- four in the morning? Who the hell knew, she'd say that -- and she'd ended the life of someone she'd liked yesterday. So it wasn't a cardinal sin or anything. But still. Wasn't her.

She didn't cry. She didn't shake.

She didn't fucking blink.

But for the second time on this island, Kaitlyn did blink, and got the hell out of there before the dawn broke and those announcements hit.

Kaitlyn, Jaime, and Amanda had taken Mabes outside. Emma and Lucilly, however, had stayed behind. Emma looked at Mabes before they took her through the door, but tore her eyes away. Something occurred to her, and it was that it was most likely the last time she’d see Mabes at all. Not as a living person, but as a… thing. A thing that dripped blood out of its neck. No, she shouldn’t think of it like that. But a shudder ran up and down her spine as they passed her with the body.

When they came back, Amanda just had to comment about Mabes being stuck in the rain. Emma didn’t say anything, not at first. Couldn’t. Instead, she looked to the floor, again touching her arm. She didn’t like that mental image.

But maybe they could bury her in the morning? Emma wasn’t sure how. Digging a hole without a shovel would be difficult, though. And a big enough one for an entire person? Even more so.

Even so, Emma still wasn’t sure about leaving Mabes out in the rain to rot.

That night, Emma dreamed.

She was in a shadowy void, the only light coming from a fire in from of her. It only lit up about three feet, before the darkness swallowed up everything beyond it. The flames crackled, and even though she couldn’t see anything in front of her, she knew she was being hunted.

Emma stared into the darkness.

The darkness stared back.

At first, a single yellow moon appeared in the sky. With it came stars, gently floating nearby. There was a strange beauty to it, and yet, the sight gave Emma goosebumps. One moon became two, with a dark pupil on each. The stars moved to form sharp, needle-like teeth. The animal’s face gave a hungry smile. Emma sat frozen.

The flames went out.

Emma woke up on the floor of the pub, just behind the bar. But she couldn’t move. Her limbs and back were stuck, as if glued to the wood. Her eyes flicked around, only landing on the ceiling. A strange breathing noise filled the air, filled her ears. A sense of overwhelming horror filled her.

She closed her eyes, opened them again.

A pressure was on top of her. It looked like a creature, made of pure blackness. It lowered its snout just an inch from her face, sniffing her. Then it grinned. Something like it, at least. Its teeth were bared, almost as if prepared. Its four feet kept her pinned. Claws dug deep into her flesh.

Emma.

Her heart beat like a drum. It was just as loud as the breathing noises. She couldn’t move, nor did she want to.

Are you scared?

She closed her eyes. Opened them another time.

It was over. Nothing was on top of her. There was no sign of anything wrong, not that she could see. She moved her arms, and it came without much difficultly. Emma let out a sigh, and slid to her side. She gently moved her bag under her head. It wasn’t a good pillow, but it’d do for the time being.

As she laid, she stared at the wall in thought. She was used to episodes like that. Years of it happening meant that it’d become a normal thing. And yet, even now, especially now, it was still something unpleasant. She closed her eyes again, and focused on her breathing while wiggling her toes some.

Sometime later, maybe an hour or two, Emma decided to sit up. Sunlight had started to poke through the pub, brightening it up a little. Her hand reached up to the counter, and grabbed her glasses from where she put them. After cleaning them, she put them back on. Her shoes had been taken off too, but she didn’t think to put them back on.

Another morning in the same place, she guessed. Other than the problems going on elsewhere, they’d been alright. No danger, except maybe for Kaitlyn. Emma still wasn’t sure about her. She still didn’t seem very... trustworthy? Some part of her, as horrible as it sounded, thought that she was going to steal their things while they slept, or something terrible like that. But then, what would be the point of dividing up the supplies with them? Maybe it was paranoid. Maybe it paid to be a little cautious.

There were some other things Emma needed to discuss with the others too, of course, but she’d dozed off before she could say anything. The first one was simple, but no less important: water. They got some extra, even if it was somewhat unsavory how, but they needed to discuss ways to get more ahead of time. The second, well… Emma needed to talk about something that’d been on her mind lately. It was something that had been gnawing at her ever since they’d left the wards, she’d guessed. It did feel like a bit of an elephant in the living room, but she needed to address that elephant.

Emma pulled herself up to her feet, and placed her bag onto the counter. Emma didn’t immediately notice something was different until she had grabbed her medication and a water bottle, but when she did, it felt off.

There were five people here earlier. Amanda, Lucilly, Kaitlyn, Jaime, and her. Now there was only four. It clicked.

“Kaitlyn?”

Emma turned her head, to see if she was just somewhere out of sight. No such luck. Did she leave, or just go into another room? She wasn’t so sure what to think if she did. Not a word, really? There was something about that, that made Emma uncomfortable.

She walked out from behind the bar, looking around the room.

“Hey, is anyone else awake?”

RICHARDS/BAINES OTP!

Coming to a V7 near you.Bree Jones- "I'm not exaggerating when I say that my fish are smarter."Roxanne "Roxie" Borowski- "Next video? Oh man, tons of ideas, dude. Lemme get the makeup for that."

For v6, I have come to a decision. To help lessen character pimping, I have vowed not to talk about my characters, any characters closely related to mine, or any threads I've been involved in, in any of the following places:

I am not allowing myself to talk about anything relating to my characters or scenes I'm in unless they are brought up in conversation by another handler. I am not allowed to use my characters' names OOC or mention anything relating to that character until another handler mentions them. This is not currently in effect for pre-game; these self-imposed rules do not apply until v6 starts. However, they will be in effect the second v6 is announced. When one of my characters die, escape, or are otherwise removed from the game, these rules are lifted for that character, and I am free to talk about that character as much as I want. However, the others will have to wait until they too are out of the game.

This is a personal promise I'm keeping to myself for v6. If I break it, please feel free to bitch me out.

-KamiKaze

Addendum as of v6: I may ask for critiques while a character's arc is ongoing, as long as someone has offered to do so.

Let's show that private threads aren't necessary! I pledge not to start any private threads on island in V6. If I started a thread, you are welcome to join it.

So they moved Tessa outside. Dumped was actually better - no way was Jaime going to stick around a corpse like that. So they left her there and slept on it in an undignified heap on the ground.

The next morning, Jaime awoke to something unfamiliar.

Whupwhupwhupwhup

Was that a helicopter? Jaime leapt up, wrenching the cricks out of her back from having slept on her stomach with her ass in the air.

"What is that?" asked Kaitlyn. Lucilly looked out the window as the door opened.

A man came in, holding a remote control. He pointed it at Lucilly.

Beep. Click. Lucilly slowly put her hand to her collar and pulled. It came off and clattered onto the floor. The man approached the rest of the group, repeating the process with the remote control. Four beeps, four clicks. Four collars deactivated. The man spoke into a walkie talkie.

"We have this group. Let's go. You five. On the helicopter. We are locating and releasing the rest of your friends. You should see the video record of us storming the compound. Put it on the Surround Sound ... you can really hear the blood splatter." The five girls practically ran into the helicopter, rushing to take a seat. Jaime closed her eyes and smiled.

Jaime opened her eyes again. Specifically, she opened her eyes to see Emma standing there, still with a collar around her neck. Jaime's hand went up to her neck to feel the cold metal. Still a collar. She got up slowly, stretching to get the aches out of her back from sleeping on her stomach with her ass in the air as she remembered what she had just experienced.

She felt a slight of regret. For what she was not sure, because the term 'slight' and 'regret' were most unfitting to describe the rush of feelings she had when she saw what was once Tessa.

Lucilly averted her eyes. She averted them for all the hours that came. Out of eyes, out of mind, it was said. A futile hope, perhaps even realized by Lucilly herself. Yet she did not look. She did not look at Tessa. Not at the bloody heap that remained. She dared not to look at Jaime or Amanda or Emma or Kaitlyn. She dared not to look at sky or the earth, nor the buildings on the ground or the sea far away.

She had, of course, not closed them. Not to the physical reality, but her soul was long departed from this truth.---

Lucilly slept uneasy. That she slept at all, a majestic wonder. She had, however, suffered and suffered from an onslaught of dreams. Rather, than to speak of dreams - a term which implied a vague story, as surreal as it may be - she saw pictures.

She saw Tessa, and she saw blood. She saw something, something like a neck that was not. Just a vague body of stinking blood, of bone and meat what was once a beautiful human. What was once a human. She saw it. She saw it again. And again. And again. And again and forever and it was an image that would never leave her. Not when waking, not when dying.---

Then came morning. With it, came another announcement. Lucilly heard it not. With it, however, came another realization. A realization not made by her but by Jamie, or perhaps Emma. Lucilly felt it was wrong for her to say. Yet she grasped what was said. Kaitlyn was gone, but the meaning of it escaped Lucilly nonetheless. Oh, she would have enjoyed to know whether it was good or bad, or if it was of no meaning at all, but she could just not know.

Lucilly waited for a moment. She saw the sea again. Not in front of her eyes, but she saw it. She took her bag.

"Yes, yes. I am here. Awake. If you..."

She moved towards the door, for a moment she looked Emma into the eyes. They locked but it was dark and Lucilly could not truly see them.

"...if you excuse me, I would need a moment for myself. To, you know, do the thing."

Lucilly curtsied, and in a second, where no one watched but the Lord, Lucilly went away.

SnoopDommyDommmy: specialist subject in Mastermind is "History of Defecation in Wrestling"

Ruggahissy: We are the law now and our law keeps the streets clean O_OKilmarnock: XD Good.Kilmarnock: Yaaaay for being the law.

Kermit: I asked a kid who had a crush on me. But I pretty much only gave him a hug so I guess that wasn't nice of meKermit: My friends said I was rude not to have at least offered him a blow job Kermit: Apparently that would have been the polite thing to do

SpiralAgnew: Here, have something sad-lookingBikriki: I must add this to my collection of pics that show people crying.SpiralAgnew: XD You actually have one of those?Whirly: I was going to say "Ian, of course he has a collection like that. He's German."

Uno: You seem excited. did Bambi's mom get reincarnated as a bug you just swatted?

Skraal: would it be correct to say you've sucked on a lot of black ones?TtMaR: They taste nicerTtMaR: Better shape, too.TtMaR: They fit neatly into your mouth,.

Bikriki: My hometown is not a very indication of my personality.Bikriki: Because as far as I can recall, I am neither ugly nor full of minoritesBikriki: Though I would not mind the latter.Bikriki winks

Shangela: Facials for the greater good.

Shangela: I work you into climax, what happens afterward is none of my concern.Wes: Says the world's most detached sexecutioner.

Her mind kept returning to Tessa, still outside in the rain, still watching them from out there.

And she knew exactly what she was doing and why and she hated that she was doing it.

It was wrong to be afraid of her this way? The way her mind was making her corpse some boogeyman because she didn't want to normalise it. Didn't want to acknowledge that this was real, that Tessa being dead was real, that dying was a real thing that happened.

And so she was afraid of Tessa.

She wouldn't join her. She wouldn't.

--

Emma's voice cut into her empty sleep, slowly bringing the world back into focus once more.

Amanda sat up, blinking at the room, trying to work out what was wrong apart from that already not-so-short list of problems that stemmed from being dropped onto an island and told to kill your classmates.

"What?" She stood up, still confused. Kaitlyn was missing?

"She's not in the backroom or anything?"

She rushed over towards the backroom herself, swinging open the door hard enough that it slammed against the wall behind it, only to find a severe lack of Kaitlyn within the room.

It was only with the announcements later that morning that things made a little more sense.

Kaitlyn was a killer. Not just any killer but apparently she was the bloody Best at it, whatever that actually meant. Kaitlyn was the one who'd killed Mia and she'd just bloody claimed that she committed suicide and she just stayed there with them and took Tessa's stuff and she just let it go because no matter how much she didn't like it, Kaitlyn just looked like she was trying to survive and what the heck was she supposed to say about that?

And she had a bomb.

Kailtyn had a bomb and it was all her fault.

She should have shot her, she should have stopped her, she should have done anything other than nothing.

But she didn't and now Kaitlyn was out there with a bomb, a gun, and whatever weapon the terrorists had decided to throw at her.

Okay, calm. She needed to do something, but not something stupid.

"Okay guys," she turned to Jaime and Emma. "We need to talk. About Kaitlyn."

She didn't want to talk so much as ramble, but that was far beside the point.

Lucilly had left, and still hadn’t come back. Kaitlyn was still conspicuously absent. There were still issues to be solved.

Everything was a mess.

Emma had wondered if it was good for Lucilly to find a buddy, or for them to start a search party. She was currently alone, and it didn’t seem safe. She’d left in a vague way, too, and they had no idea on where she was. The world was dangerous these days. She’d lost enough people to know that.

She wasn’t sure if now was the time to broach that question she’d been thinking about. Or whether there was a right way to broach it. It was a problem, and Emma wanted to see it dealt with. She needed everyone else’s thoughts on it, so that no one does anything rash.

That topic became more urgent when the announcements came back on. She hated the announcements. It was only bad news, of some kind or another. As Danya joked around, Emma tensed up, wondering what awful thing he was going to say this time.

Alongside everything else, it turned out Kaitlyn had lied to them.

It wasn’t a suicide. It was murder. Kaitlyn had killed Mia, in a particularly unpleasant way. She’d subjected her to a long, drawn out death, and for what? Supplies? Like what she did with Tessa’s body? Just injected her, took her things?

And they’d talked to her. Trusted her. Sure, Emma had found her suspicious, but still, there was an element of trust. Even let her have a weapon. Emma had dozed off with her in the room. And this entire time, she’d killed someone.

After the announcement, Emma was quiet. Yet, her features were tight and hard. Her arms and legs were shaking.

How. Dare. She.

After what seemed like both an eternity and yet not long enough, Amanda spoke up. Kaitlyn needed to be discussed. Emma couldn’t agree more. That was just one thing they needed to talk about.

“I agree,” she said. “There’s some other stuff we need to talk over, too, but… I feel like I should let you talk first.”

Even though she was still processing that information, one thing was clear to Emma. They needed a plan for things like this in the future. Kaitlyn was just acting suspicious around them, but what if it’s someone like Kimiko? Alvaro? Or even… those two? Those two had been on her mind for a while.

But it was good to let Amanda speak first. See what she had to say, you know? She could even be thinking the exact same thing she was.

RICHARDS/BAINES OTP!

Coming to a V7 near you.Bree Jones- "I'm not exaggerating when I say that my fish are smarter."Roxanne "Roxie" Borowski- "Next video? Oh man, tons of ideas, dude. Lemme get the makeup for that."

For v6, I have come to a decision. To help lessen character pimping, I have vowed not to talk about my characters, any characters closely related to mine, or any threads I've been involved in, in any of the following places:

I am not allowing myself to talk about anything relating to my characters or scenes I'm in unless they are brought up in conversation by another handler. I am not allowed to use my characters' names OOC or mention anything relating to that character until another handler mentions them. This is not currently in effect for pre-game; these self-imposed rules do not apply until v6 starts. However, they will be in effect the second v6 is announced. When one of my characters die, escape, or are otherwise removed from the game, these rules are lifted for that character, and I am free to talk about that character as much as I want. However, the others will have to wait until they too are out of the game.

This is a personal promise I'm keeping to myself for v6. If I break it, please feel free to bitch me out.

-KamiKaze

Addendum as of v6: I may ask for critiques while a character's arc is ongoing, as long as someone has offered to do so.

Let's show that private threads aren't necessary! I pledge not to start any private threads on island in V6. If I started a thread, you are welcome to join it.

And Kaitlyn got a weapon out of it, giving her a gun, an explosive device and another gun to go with them.

"Okay guys. We need to talk. About Kaitlyn." Jaime looked around. Where was Lucilly?

“I agree. There’s some other stuff we need to talk over, too, but… I feel like I should let you talk first.”

"Let me guess. If we find Kaitlyn again, we drop kick her ass." Jaime turned to the camera. "Hey, guys! Thanks for letting us know about Kaitlyn. I'm still gonna feed your dick to you after this is over, through."

Okay, maybe she wouldn't get to do that, but she could still dream, right?

“Yeah.” she nodded at Jaime, before realising what she had said. ”No. No. Maybe.”

But Jaime was half right.

“But yeah, we just let a killer out there. She lied to us, but we were still the one’s who let her get off our sight. I mean we all knew something was wrong when she was picking up scraps from dead people right?” Her voice was rising more than she noticed. She wasn’t just upset that Kaitlyn had tricked them. She was just as much upset that she had been tricked.

“We had a chance to stop her, but we didn’t. I don’t know what the fuck I want to do when we find her, but I feel like we gotta fo that.” But it wasn’t just Kaitlyn who had killed. Nancy, Isabel, even Kimiko was killing people out there. What was she doing talking like this? What would finding her even accomplish?

The gun was still there. Lying on the ground as if simply waiting to catch her attention once more. She almost hated it now. And yet she was even more afraid to be without it.

“What if she- Do we want to- When we-” She paused. The words had suddenly stopped coming out right.

She had pointed the gun at Kaitlyn without thinking. She could have done it. If her fingers hadn’t been trembling at the trigger, she might have done it. If Kaitlyn hadn’t stopped right there, maybe she would have.

Emma put a finger to her mouth, and looked around. Again, she still wasn’t sure if the terrorists were that petty. Last time Jaime did something like that, nothing had happened. She guessed they needed them alive for as long as possible, just so… well, the other students finished the job. A shudder ran up her spine at the thought. Maybe they weren’t that petty, but Emma wanted to stay on the safe side. They’d killed Tessa for damaging a camera, so she wasn’t sure what else would end with them stepping in personally.

Tessa. The mental image of her slumped in the chair still stuck with her.

Nothing happened, though, and Amanda continued.

She really was thinking the same thing she was, wasn’t she? Kind of. Emma thought it over. Would it have been right to shoot Kaitlyn? On one hand, they just let a killer go without realizing it. They even let her have more weapons to use. If she used that bomb on someone, wouldn’t it mean that they were indirectly responsible? It wasn’t like Kaitlyn wasn’t acting suspicious, either.

“Amanda…”

Emma didn’t know what to say.

Tell her.

“I’ve… been wondering the same thing too.”

It was the truth. She hated it.

“I keep thinking… what if we run into someone like Nancy or Isabel? We all know what they’ve done, but… I don’t want anyone to do anything rash. In case, you know, we run into them.”

Nancy, Isabel. Murderers. Big ones. She hated them, but if she ran into them, she didn’t want to do anything stupid. She had all the reason to. And Kaitlyn had taken advantage of them. Lied to them, pretended that Mia had died differently. Let Mia die a cruel death. She didn’t even seem to feel bad about it.

Emma shifted nervously.

“Kaitlyn lied to us, too. There’s no doubt about it. She didn’t even seem to feel bad. I feel like…”

Spit it out.

“I feel like, in the future, we should have some kind of plan for dealing with people like her. Or, heck, even if we find her. Maybe, if she comes back, or someone else-“

Emma felt for Amanda. She looked nervous, and unsure. Jaime was probably going to outright suggest violence again, but Emma didn’t feel exactly comfortable with that. There was one thing Emma knew, and that was that she didn’t want to end up a murderer. There were so many reasons why. And yet, as the hours went on, it felt more and more like an issue. She hated it. She didn’t want to do it. Even if the solution they came up with involved violence, she still wanted to stick to her values.

“We can’t become killers though. It’s just not right, I feel.”

She hated Kaitlyn. She hated Nancy. She hated Isabel. Some part of her even hated Alvaro, and Jasmine, and Kimiko, and all the other people who could be killing their classmates right now. It was disgusting. But, they didn’t deserve death, did they? Would it make them any better?

It seemed like there was an easy solution, and yet, it wasn’t staring her in the face.

RICHARDS/BAINES OTP!

Coming to a V7 near you.Bree Jones- "I'm not exaggerating when I say that my fish are smarter."Roxanne "Roxie" Borowski- "Next video? Oh man, tons of ideas, dude. Lemme get the makeup for that."

For v6, I have come to a decision. To help lessen character pimping, I have vowed not to talk about my characters, any characters closely related to mine, or any threads I've been involved in, in any of the following places:

I am not allowing myself to talk about anything relating to my characters or scenes I'm in unless they are brought up in conversation by another handler. I am not allowed to use my characters' names OOC or mention anything relating to that character until another handler mentions them. This is not currently in effect for pre-game; these self-imposed rules do not apply until v6 starts. However, they will be in effect the second v6 is announced. When one of my characters die, escape, or are otherwise removed from the game, these rules are lifted for that character, and I am free to talk about that character as much as I want. However, the others will have to wait until they too are out of the game.

This is a personal promise I'm keeping to myself for v6. If I break it, please feel free to bitch me out.

-KamiKaze

Addendum as of v6: I may ask for critiques while a character's arc is ongoing, as long as someone has offered to do so.

Let's show that private threads aren't necessary! I pledge not to start any private threads on island in V6. If I started a thread, you are welcome to join it.

But some part of her wanted to have done it. Some part of her so sure that she would have been happier if she had done it. Some part of her still wanted to do it.

"Yeah, we do need a plan." She’d said that since day one, but the closest thing to a plan she’d come up with had led them here.

“But what can we do? I don’t think any of us here can outtalk a bullet.”

Hold on.

There were only three people in the room. Her. Emma. Jaime.

Someone was missing. Someone other than Kaitlyn.

“Wait. Where's Lucilly?"

She'd said she'd gone outside for a bit, but how long ago had that been?

Her bag wasn't here. She must have taken it with her, but that meant-

Lucilly had left.

The heck.

Lucilly was gone.

She couldn't breathe, nervous laughter fighting all sensibility for the situation.

Of course she'd left. Of course she did.

It'd been four days now and all they'd managed to do was scrape by.

What had they managed to do? They'd spent two days stuck in a shitty room, and their search for water had ended up with them giving a killer a weapon.

She was terrible at this. She wasn't the one who came up with plans. She wasn't the one who decided things. But no one seemed to want to do it and so she had tried.

Look how great that turned out.

It didn't even feel like she'd tried all that hard, after all.

It was a miracle that they'd managed to keep together as long as they did.

And now it everything was starting to fall apart.

She had panicked when Lucilly tried to leave that first time on the first day. She didn't know why then but now she knew. She hadn't been worried about Lucilly. She had been worried about her little attempt at leading the group falling apart.

But she'd left anyway, proving exactly how bad she was at this.

Why couldn't Emma have taken charge? She was clearly more suited for the role, Emma could handle things. That's why she was in the student council after all. Amanda wasn't meant to be doing this. She wasn't meant to be in charge of a group like this. She always tried to do too much and she knew, she knew that once again she had gone in over her head.

There was too much be angry at. Kaitlyn, the terrorists, Lucilly, the island, Emma, everything.

But most of all she was angry at herself.

"Sorry. I really can't- No, I can’t do this anymore."

They deserved an explanation but she couldn't pull the words together to give them one. Not like this.

All she knew is that she needed to be away from them suddenly and that she had already grabbed her things and that she was already out the door.

"Aman -" Too late. Amanda got out of there. And then there were two. And neither one with a good weapon to defend themselves with.

Jaime was three stepped away from audibly rolling her eyes at Emma's need for quiet. Yes, they heard what Jaime had said, no there wasn't anything to worry about. What, did Emma think that Jaime was actually going to be able to carry out any of the shit she said? Or that they'd care enough? Jaime just rolled her eyes at Amanda's departure.

Too late, Amanda was leaving too. And it didn’t look like Lucilly was coming back. The mess got worse. As if everything couldn’t get worse.

Emma stood up. And did what intuition told her. It was also what Jaime echoed.

She quickly slid her boots back on. Grabbed her bag. Ran out the door.

“Hey, wait!”

Emma ran out the door, but Amanda broke into a sprint. And, more importantly, she was faster. Emma wasn’t that athletic, but Amanda, a soccer player? Was. This was quickly proven when, after a few feet of running, Emma’s legs numbed. A foot later, and she fell onto the wet dirt.

Shaking, she lifted herself by her arms. Emma spat out some dirt from her mouth. Her glasses were falling down her nose, and her legs wouldn’t budge.

Amanda has just… she’d just left them. Lucilly, too. Kaitlyn had killed someone, Nancy and Isabel were still out there, her other family and friends were still fighting, still dying, and they hadn’t resolved a thing. They were still stuck here, and everyone around them was still dying. And Emma had been so stupid. She’d let Amanda take the lead. But was that even a good idea?

Everything was falling apart around her, and she hated it.

She hated it.

Emma made a sobbing noise. But, no more came from her mouth. Her legs slowly unnumbed. She slowly, but steadily, surely, lifted herself off the ground.

For v6, I have come to a decision. To help lessen character pimping, I have vowed not to talk about my characters, any characters closely related to mine, or any threads I've been involved in, in any of the following places:

I am not allowing myself to talk about anything relating to my characters or scenes I'm in unless they are brought up in conversation by another handler. I am not allowed to use my characters' names OOC or mention anything relating to that character until another handler mentions them. This is not currently in effect for pre-game; these self-imposed rules do not apply until v6 starts. However, they will be in effect the second v6 is announced. When one of my characters die, escape, or are otherwise removed from the game, these rules are lifted for that character, and I am free to talk about that character as much as I want. However, the others will have to wait until they too are out of the game.

This is a personal promise I'm keeping to myself for v6. If I break it, please feel free to bitch me out.

-KamiKaze

Addendum as of v6: I may ask for critiques while a character's arc is ongoing, as long as someone has offered to do so.

Let's show that private threads aren't necessary! I pledge not to start any private threads on island in V6. If I started a thread, you are welcome to join it.